TRIGGERnometry - Backstabbed By The Entire Comedy Industry - Graham Linehan

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Graham Linehan is a writer and director who has created or co-created some of our most beloved shows including Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. Tough Crowd - Available here and in all good bookshops: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tough-Crowd-Made-Career-Comedy/dp/B0CLMFP9PT/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=graham+linehan&qid=1702894912&s=books&sr=1-1 Signed copies (while stocks last) available here: https://www.eye-books.com/books/tough-crowd SPONSOR: Go to https://givesendgo.com and raise money for anything important to you. SPONSOR: Try Factor today and get 50% off by using code: TRIGGER50 at https://factormeals.com Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you not have a self-preservation instinct, which is, I am destroying my career here. Again, I just thought, who would disagree with this? The Father Ted musical has been cancelled because of them. This would have sold out immediately. Whoever puts us out is basically printing money. The other day I had to hide my car in case it's repossessed. That's how bad my money situation is at the moment. Again, what have I said that is so terrible to deserve it?

that kind of treatment. As someone puts it, the patriarchy in stilettos. Graham Linnon. Hello. What a journey it's been for you. I mean, you're back on the show, of course, but the first time in the flesh. It's been years of what must feel like

an arduous battle for you, expressing your concerns about trans ideology, losing a hell of a lot of opportunities, some would say your career to a large extent. And here you are, probably feeling, certainly in terms of what you were saying, quite vindicated. Yeah, well, you kind of have to tell me.

I don't, I always think every, every shocking news story I hear about, you know, rapists in women's prisons or men and women's sports, I always used to think, oh, this is the one. This is the one that I'll show people that it's, that it's, uh, it's like when, when Martina Navratilova broke cover and started, um, uh, talking about fairness in sports, I thought, oh, it's over. It's over. She's, she's like a lesbian icon. And of course they just monstered her

Exactly the same way that they monstered Everybody who goes into this Debate So yeah, you'd really have to tell me whether it's turning around or not But if it is, I'm very happy to hear it, you know You don't think it's turning around? I'm not sure Because I'm in such a weird position

I'm right at the centre of it I didn't mean to be But the more I insisted Hey, this is something that we should I'll be talking about. It's not, um, it's, it's, the things they're telling us are taboos are not really taboos. Um, the more I said that, the more I kind of increased my notoriety. Uh, as I say in the book, like pink news have written 75 hit pieces about me. And so there was a kind of a, there's been a swirl of, um, misinformation around me. Also, that extends to my Wikipedia page, which

We can't change, you know. Everything is written so that it's the worst, most negative view of me. And, yeah, I've just been in this strange position, very isolated. I wrote the book. What's it called? Tell everybody. Sorry, I've written the book. You've written a book. Yes, I've written a book.

The book is called Tough Crowd, and it's a memoir. The trans stuff is only the last, you know, third of the book. but like I've been basically writing that book while completely isolated having lost all my contacts really from my previous life during COVID as well so it was like two years of of being cancelled during COVID is a very strange experience even more isolating and yeah all I've been doing is I've been saying exactly the same thing that I've been saying for the last five years but I had to write a book before people started actually listening

to the content of what I was saying. One of the things I found genuinely really striking and unpleasant about the way that people were treating you is there were some people who I would have thought owed some loyalty and this is what happened with JK Rowling as well where the actors who got massive breaks

from acting in Harry Potter then essentially stabbed her in the back or suddenly turned their backs on her. Likewise with you, there are people who got big breaks with roles in things that you'd written. People like Graham Norton, for example, coming out and saying there's no such thing as cancel culture, having watched you be cancelled for like several years in a row. There's only accountability culture. I mean, that's got to be gutting. Yeah, and it keeps happening. And not only that, but people go out of their way to attack me. Bill Bailey said it was who I cast in black

books said that my activism was baffling, you know, as if it was like just a kind of, you know, a thing I was doing for recreation. You know, the issues here are extremely high stakes, you know, the health of children, the safeguarding of women, fairness in women's sports. These are all so the idea that it's baffling. And then Graham Norton, as you say, says there's no such thing as council culture. He must know that I've had my life destroyed by trans rights activists. He must know that the Father Ted musical has been cancelled because of them. And yet he, you know, he makes this statement about accountability.

But again, what am I being held accountable for? You know, everyone agrees with me. You know what I mean? It's just that for some weird reason, this ideology has kind of taken over in certain areas, publishing, the theater, journalism. For some reason, it's these middle-class pursuits is the wrong word, but it's these middle-class industries that have been, you know, captured. and everyone outside of these industries, no one believes it. Everyone believes that women should have fair sports,

that men shouldn't be able to go into women's toilets or changing areas or rape crisis centers, whatever it happens to be, simply because they identify as a woman. No one believes this outside of these industries. And also you cannot speak to anyone about it. If you talk to people about it, they do the equivalent to put in their hands,

over their ears. And I think it's because, I think it's because, because it's a middle class phenomenon, you know, everybody in the middle class knows somebody whose child identifies as non-binary or, or, you know, or has some sort of similar identification thing going on. And these kids are kind of feeding their parents a line of nonsense, you know, that the parents, you know, who love their kids, are just swallowing whole. So, Graham, when I was growing up, I used to watch Father Ted, loved it. One of my all-time favorite sitcoms, brilliant. So many of your shows I watched and I loved,

how did you get involved in going from that to this? Well, I kind of always had my ear to the ground in terms of things that were coming down the pipe. when I was when I was just starting out in comedy I went to see a comedy masterclass by Danny Simon who was Neil Simon's brother

and I remember at times someone said a funny thing they said because he was listed on the ad as being one of the greatest comedy writers in the world and a friend said he's not even the greatest in his own family but this was kind of unfair because he actually did know his onions

he worked on the Mary Tyler Moore show he worked on Bilko which is one of my favorites, much better known over here than it is in the US, even though it's American sitcom. So I wanted to hear what he had to say.

And one of the things he said was anyone who's writing sitcoms should be aware of changing social trends because a very good place to set a sitcom is at the edge of something like that, something new coming along. And his example was the Mary Tyler Moore show because there were a greater number of women

entering the workplace suddenly because of the pill. And so they wrote this show about a woman, career woman who comes and works on a news program, you know, except he used the word women's livers, which was really funny. But I always felt that

that was really good advice. So I always kept my antennae up for things that were changing. And it also kind of naturally aligned with my I'm just a very curious person. I like new, I like new books. I don't read the classics as much as I read stuff that's supposed to be very good now.

And yeah, I do a couple of things. Like the only reason I'm a poker player is because I was just an early adopter of the kind of the poker boom that happened when Chris Moneymaker won the World Series. Because he entered into a competition for 10 quid or something or free. It was a free ticket. span it up into a series of tournament entries, kept winning, and then won the World Series. So it just completely created a poker boom. And I remember getting into poker thinking,

oh, it's very special, very special. Really, no one else is doing this. Everyone else was doing it. It was just because I was kind of always on the lookout for new things I could get involved with. And in the same way, I kind of realized that there was a big thing happening with the internet. which was that some people knew exactly what it was

and exactly what was going on and other people hadn't a clue like they didn't know the words for things they didn't know that you know I don't know I'm trying to think what's a good example well you know you like oh god this is one from the book but but like you could say to someone know what browser are you using

and someone won't have a clue what you're talking about yeah so I realized that was a good someone who knows a lot about computers and someone who doesn't know a lot about computers is a good conversation that will mark that new social change. You know? So the IT crowd kind of got borne out of that.

So then I was still paying attention. I was still trying to see what was coming down the pipe and it was actually an episode of the IT cloud I wrote that had a trans character in it. And I noticed that the pushback was extraordinarily vicious, much more so than any other joke I'd written that had got any kind of pushback. In fact, I'd never

really got any pushback for a joke before. This was the first time, which marked it out as, oh, this is interesting. And bear in mind, you were joking about Catholic priests in Ireland in the 90s. Yes, exactly. But then again, I don't want to give myself too much credit there. It was kind of safe. Catholic priests don't try and destroy your career, you know. But like, But I noticed that happening, first of all.

And then Gamergate came along. And on Gamergate, I was sure I had completely, I completely absorbed what the issue was, what was going on. And I dismissed it as to everyone who would listen to me, and I had a lot of followers, as a misogynistic hate campaign, which on some levels it was. There were people kind of tagging along with it for that reason. But there were also a lot of guys who thought that they were fighting corruption in gaming journalists.

And I just kind of became a node, one more node of people who are saying, it's just a misogynistic hate campaign. That's all it is. Like a thought terminating cliche, just to shut it down, rather than looking at all the complexities, see what was going on, See if there were any valid arguments from the other side. None of that. No strong manning a case.

I just had my weapon, which was, it's just a misogynistic hate campaign. So anyway, GamerGay passed. And then I started noticing that suddenly the, during GamerGay, one of the most famous things that happened was a thing called Operation Lollipop. where all these trolls set up fake accounts of black women and pretended that they found Father's Day offensive. Right? And they set up a hashtag called something like End Father's Day. Right?

It was designed just to create as much havoc as they possibly could. I remember at the time, you know, the people who I was allying myself with on the left, very much on the left, I was always a very good little lefty. But these people were, you know, very critical of this piece of trolling. Men dressing is, men pretending to be women online to create havoc, was considered by the left a bad thing when the right did it. And then the left started doing it. The same, I just saw the same types of anime avatars popping up that were on the other side during Gamergate.

And I realized that, you know, basically there's always a huge contingent of men on the internet who really don't like women. They despise women. And they will do anything they can to undermine them and troll them and get their own back for all sorts of real and imagined slights in their past. You know? And they just switched horses. I'm not saying they're exactly the same people. It was definitely a crossover, you know. And they just started abusing women online.

targeting their work, doing all the Gamergate tactics, you know, which included swatting. You know what swatting is? Swatting is when, well, do you want to, well, I do swatting. It's very simple. So in a, for example, if people are watching somebody who plays computer games on Twitch, they will find out what their address is, and then they will report a very serious crime as allegedly happening at that location. Okay, got you.

So that they can watch on camera as a SWAT team. descends on this person that they're watching. Like the camera is just an added bonus in that particular case. It was done to a lot of women during Game of Gate apparently, you know? And apparently one of the things that SWAT teams do when they go into a situation is they immediately

kill the pet. They kill the family pet. So even if it doesn't result in the death of their targets, they've still caused a lot of distress and all this sort of stuff. Anyway, again, this was a tactic. Terrible. Worst thing in the world

when it happens on the right. But when it happened, when the left were doing it, as happened to Tim, what's his name? Paul. Tim Pool. Tim Pool lately. There's not a word about it, you know? So I saw these kind of internet war tactics being used against the latest target,

which was left-wing women, who were being called turfs, who were being subjected to work tribunal. They were being reported to the police. All sorts of things were going on. And I just thought, I had what I thought was a natural thought, which was, this is not right. This is a bad thing. We should all be trying to stop this.

But again, because these new, this new target where left-wing women, well, actually, No, I'm kind of confusing the issue because what's very interesting about this, sorry, excuse me, let me rewind a little bit. This new target, the women who are being, the women in GamerGate who were being targeted were gamers, right? And gaming journalists and whatever. The women who were being targeted this time were left-wing women who were left-wing women who were really the backbone of a lot of left-wing activism in the UK. You know, like two of the people who were targeted were Helen St. Steele, who is the woman who single-handedly sued McDonald's, you know, whatever you think of the action, it was an incredible feat for her to do it, and she was hugely respected among

the left for it. And Linda Bellos, who came up with, I think, Black History Month in the UK, you know? These are two significant figures in left-wing activism. They're being called bigots. Linda Bellas is black, and they're being called bigots. And it's like, again, Well, this isn't right. Why is this, why is this, why is this happening? I should, I should say something, you know. But again, all these tactics, men pretending to be women online, targeting jobs, targeting livelihoods.

When Gamergate was doing it, when, when the right were doing it, it was the worst thing in the world. And it was a sign that Trump and everything is going to be created a hell on earth for LGBT people and all the rest of it, and feminists and women's. And women's. Women's. Women's. Yeah.

But then when the left started doing it, exact same tactics. Men pretending to be women online, targeting livelihoods, targeting, you know, one of the things that happened to me when I came out was people would literally just kind of contact all my friends and say, can I just ask why you're still following Graham Linnehood, you know? And it was just like a kind of a, everything was done except talk. about the issue. The issue itself, you couldn't, you couldn't bring it, you couldn't

talk, talk about it because yeah, sorry. I was going to say, and when was the moment you came out? When was the moment you stepped forward and went, enough's enough, I'm going to make my voice comment. Just to be clear, he's not gay, you just said what he thinks. Yeah, of course, because you can't be gay, because gay means there's a binary.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, apparently a lot of, I heard one guy tweeting recently that gay men are more frightened of saying they're GC than they are of coming out, than they were of coming out. But, well, again, sorry to bring up another bit in the book, but I guess it is kind of, you know, central, but I was on morphine.

I just had an operation to get a testicle removed, like Hitler. And I was on morphine and there was a wound on my side that was covered by a bandage. Yeah. And I thought,

oh, it doesn't feel too bad at all. I hop to my feet, chucked on my jeans, and just got ready to go. And the nurse came in and was like, what the fuck, what are you doing? And I was like, oh, sorry, I thought it was just a, you know, it was supposed to be a day release thing. You're supposed to have the operation and walk out later. So anyway, I got back onto the trolley. The morphine started, you know, was still kicking in. I didn't realize it had, oh, that's why I wasn't feeling any pain.

And I just had my phone. I disastrously had my phone. and I've been studying it for a few weeks, of months even. I've been going, what is this? Am I getting anything wrong? Is there something I'm missing? And I just couldn't locate it. You know?

People would say things like, oh, trans people have always been around. They're just braver now. That's the reason we're now noticing them. It's like, what? So, and it was, but it's like, the reason I know that's bullocks is because Shakespeare didn't notice them. And he noticed everything else. about humanity? So how did he miss an entire cohort of people who have always existed?

You know? And but you got involved in this essentially when you're on morphic. Yeah. Right? And that's when you, and that's when you started tweeting, that's when you started to get involved. That's when you made your voice public. But when you, when you obviously got off morphine, which I assume you are, Graham. It was about a year later. Yeah. But when, did you not have a self-preservation instinct? which is, I am destroying my career here. This is a career that I've worked really hard on. This is a career that is incredibly stellar.

I'm universally respected in my industry, which can I just say in comedy, is practically impossible. And then you hit this particular self-destruct button. Well, that's the thing. I didn't realize it was a self-destruct button. Again, I just thought, who would disagree with this? Women are being swatted. Sorry, not swatted.

That was Gamergate. Women are being targeted. They're losing their livelihoods. You know, one of the first stories I heard about in this fight was Vancouver rape relief, which had a dead rat nailed to the door because it won't accept men into the space because it's just for women only. And it includes trans-identified men in that. They nailed a dead rat to the door, you know?

And then like there's other stories that have happened since. Amy Hamm, who is a Canadian nurse who put up a poster saying, I love J.K. Rowling. She's still in a work tribunal three years later, you know, fighting for her job. And so I just thought, well, clearly we have to help these people. And it never occurred to me that people would go, well, actually, no, we're not. We're not helping. Not only are we not helping these women, we're not helping you, all these colleagues I'd worked with for years, you know.

And so I kind of made a bad bet when I was in my, you know, morphine state, I bet on, you know, loyalty. And, uh, and I bet that, that my friends, many of whom have daughters would want to, you know, be in the same fight. And were you, you must have been shocked then when, you know, you get people who are friends, who are colleagues, some of whom actually got their big breaks for working on things that you'd written, um, people like Graham Norton coming out later saying, well, doesn't it, how having watched you be cancelled over years, then saying there's no such thing as cancel culture, there's just accountability culture.

Yeah. Because he could just say nothing. Yeah. He could just say nothing. And that would still, you know, you can have your opinion about that. But to pretend that what's happened hasn't happened and actively say something to the contrary, that is quite something. Yeah.

But I've found that it is completely standard for this fight. people will do anything to avoid having this conversation. And Graham Norton has just kind of decided that I've just popped out of existence. And the issue is such a non-issue that he won't even discuss it. You never hear him saying why women shouldn't have fair sports or Vancouver rape relief should have a dead rat nail to the door because they know their positions are indefensible. So what they do to save their own skin, which is what he's doing,

is, you know, they genuflect every so often. And one of the things you can genuf, you know, one of the ways you can genuflect to the mob is by saying there's no such thing as council culture, even when your immediate colleague has had his life destroyed by it. We'll be back with Graham in a minute. But first, do you remember the Canadian trucker protest in 2022, where thousands of Canadians came out to protest COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates?

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Starting a campaign on Give Send Go is easy and intuitive. Go to givesendgo.com today. That's give sendgo.com to start raising money for whatever is important to you. And now back to the interview. And I wanted to come back to the question that Francis was exploring with you, which is, how can I put this? None of us are sure of issues to care about. I think that's fair to say.

There's modern slavery. There is, I mean, there's wars every fucking country at the moment. You know, like there's so many things that we could all care about. But you really focused in on this issue as being very important. Why is this such an important issue to you? You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe. If that happens, LifeLock gives you a U.S.-based restoration agent who will stick by your side from start to finish.

phone calls, filing documentation, preparing insurance claims, your agent handles it all. In fact, we're so confident restoration is guaranteed, pour your money back. Isn't it nice to have someone like that on your side? Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com slash Spotify. Terms apply. Well, again, first of all, I have a daughter, and I have a mom and a, you know, and I had a wife, you know. I thought their rights were important. And again, I just find it, I think sometimes I find that conservative spaces

still don't realize how key this is. You know, this is like the door that unlocks everything else, critical race theory and everything else. If you could, if half the population can dominate the other half and take big slices of the pie that over 100 years after the suffragettes, we'd worked out how to create a little bit of, I know it's a dread word, but equity between men and women, right? And suddenly there were a group of men who were suddenly grabbing pieces of this pie.

The best example is sports. You know, they have a massive physical advantage. It's not reduced by transitioning. And many don't transition. They just say they're transitioning. And they get, you know, why wouldn't you do it? You get like huge cash prizes. But again, it's like it's so clearly wrong.

It's like you've kind of suddenly given some of the worst people in the world a license to behave abominably, you know? Like, is there anyone lower than someone who would join a woman's sport just to beat? I don't think so, you know? So, like... Really, Graham? Worsen a murderer, a paedophile, a rapist? Sorry, yeah, you're right, you're right. One of my other problems, I used to be a movie and film critic.

I'm sometimes given to hyperbole. There's a rhetorical flourish But like I do think that it's pretty low So I just kind of thought Oh well everyone will see this Like I remember once I got into an argument With John Ronson, a journalist Now John Ronson

He's someone who should be all over this He wrote a book called So You've Been Publicly Shamed A book? Yes, justifiably a well-regarded book He told a story of Justine Sacco I think her name was who famously told a joke that was deliberately interpreted in the worst possible light while she was on a plane flight going from somewhere to somewhere. She said, I'm going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS.

Actually, I won't because I'm white, lull. And by the time she landed in Africa, like her life had been absolutely destroyed. And it was clearly a anti-racist joke. It was about Western comfort. And her life was destroyed. And John wrote a very moving interview with her. And I thought, well, John will be all over this. Because this is the industrialization of those kinds of shaming tactics.

Not a bit of it, you know. I showed him a photograph of a huge hulking bloke playing in a girls' basketball team. All the girls are like in their teens. and he seemed more worried about the bloke's feelings than any of the girls. And why do you think that is? Why do you think that this industry has been captured to such an extent, particularly comedy, Graham? Because if you think the greatest comedy, in my opinion,

I'm sure it's probably yours as well, are the ones who point out the things that nobody are talking about, saying the emperor has no clothes, etc., etc. A great Hulking bloke playing basketball with a load of 14-year-olds, I mean, that to me seems a pretty ripe, you know, pretty ripe territory for comedy. Yeah, like Eddie, I find it, what I find really funny, I remember once, what's his name, Nish Kumar did a list of people who were joking about, I call him the Smiths, what's his name? I call him the Smiths, because he's his day then pronouns.

And, you know, I would make fun of this because I think it's absurd. Yeah. And he's an absurd figure. Just the same way I made fun of, I remember Sting, cut an incredibly absurd figure when he was famous. We used to watch him on TV. And author would always say, watch him take off his shirt. He will find a way, you know. But now the idea that this ridiculous man, Sam Smith, who's demanding we all use counterintuitive pronouns for him,

is somehow off limits. Nish Kumar did a list. Me and Andrew Doyle were in it. And Nigel Farage, I think, was on it. People who are making fun of Sam Smith, you know. And it's like, what are you talking about? These are the people we make fun of. Like Eddie Isard is another ridiculous figure, you know?

It's like running for election in a pink beret using women's toilets. And just no one's allowed to say this is a little bit wrong. This is not right. He shouldn't be doing it. it, you know, and no one's able to be comic about it, you know. So that was one of the things I tried to do when I was in this. I tried to make people realize we have this YouTube channel called The Mess We're in, where I talk about these issues with a Canadian gay man named Ardy Morty and a Welsh feminist, Helen Staneland. And they're really smart and they're really funny. And we have

a great laugh on it. And that was important to me to break the spell, you know. It's like, Nish Kumar is saying we can't make fun of ridiculous people, you know? And it's, and it's true. It's like the whole thing is like a disease in comedy. Like when did Trevor Noah ever go viral? I don't think ever. When is Nish, what are Nish Kumar's five best jokes, you know? And they're just, it's just, they've, they've changed their role into kind of, I call them regime comedians.

They're just mouthpieces for what the mob is. is currently into, you know? But Graham, I agree with all of what you said at the internet. But why? Why do you think, let's really try and explore the core of this? Why is it that comedy, which is meant to be, all of these things we've spoken about, has been taken over by this ideology? What is it about it? Is it the people in the industry?

Is it the comedians themselves? What's going on? I think one of the things before you answer, Graham, we should say is it's the British comedy scene. This has not been the case in America in anything like the same way. Yes. In America, people have no problem making fun of this issue. Really? On TV, maybe a different issue, but you go in the comedy.

I mean, you go to Rogan's Club, for example. There's no shortage of people. And this isn't just in a last year or so. Like, there have been lots and lots of people been able to make jokes about all of these issues. I think there's something uniquely special about the British industry. Absolutely, but it may not be the reason it was captured.

Well, I'm not sure. Maybe you'll be able to tell me whether the makeup is different of, you know, American comedians. But I think comedy is a middle class, another middle class industry. And it's, and basically this is a mass delusion that has particularly affected the middle class. You know, you don't, you don't often look at comedy as a way to, you know, break into millions or to have a career if you're working class. I don't think it comes, the thought doesn't come as naturally. put a bunch of middle class people sitting around

nothing else to worry about except taking a business out of things with their friends of course comedy occurs still you know so they get into comedy and then suddenly you know you just got a kind of a a middle class ring I guess and that unfortunately it seems to have only happened recently

that there is acceptable and unacceptable subjects you know like and even when you don't cover them I was banned from the Edinburgh Festival. My act, it's just silly jokes. It's just like IT crowd jokes or Father Ted jokes.

I don't think there's anything about the trans issue. Maybe one joke once. But it's like, you know, it's suddenly there's certain people who, no, no, they're not allowed. They're not allowed to be on a stage or in front of an audience or speak to people.

No, no, no, no, no. You know, where do where did that come from? I think that might be one of the reasons, actually, because the one thing that they do have in the U.S. is different scenes in different places. And so you might not be welcome on the, you know, Los Angeles scene if you make those jokes. But you can go to Austin, you can go to New York, you can go to different parts of the country. Whereas in the UK, there's one scene. Sure.

It's controlled by about three people. Yeah. And if those three people happen to think, you know, trans women are women or whatever, and you don't, that's sort of you. Yeah. Isn't it? That seems to me a big part of it as well. It's like there's one narrative. I mean, Andrew Doyle, who is a mutual friend of ours, of course,

always makes this point about Nika Burns in 2018. This is the woman who runs the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, said, you know, I look forward to the woke future of comedy where comedians decide what isn't acceptable. And if that's one person and there's three others who happen to, you know, be TV commissioners and whatever, sort of between the four of them, they can basically set the agenda. Yeah.

And then they don't even have to enforce it because everyone else is going to fall in line. Yeah. And also, you know, the thing that happened to me is, was, you know, as a warning for the others, you know. It's like, it's like you're the head on a spike. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, everybody is being frightened

out of engaging in this conversation. And one of the things that I've been desperately trying to get across the people for the last five or six years is if we all do it, they can't win, you know? Have you ever heard of the, oh God, this may, and this may end up on the cutting room floor, maybe just keep this for your Patreon people. Have you ever heard of a game called Werewolf?

No. We used to play it with all my celebrity mates, you know, about 12 of us around the table. You need a lot of people, you know. Everyone gets a piece of paper. It's either got a villager written on it, vast majority, but two have the word werewolf written on it. It's divided into day and night phases.

Someone runs the game to make sure no one's cheating. And they go, okay, it's nighttime. Everyone close your eyes. Everyone closes their eyes. Then they go, Weirwolves, open your eyes. The two werewolves open their eyes, and they see the other one,

and they give a little thumbs up to show that they've clocked each other. And then the woman says, Weirwolds choose someone to kill during the night. And the werewolves go, that right. They say, okay, everyone close your eyes. It's morning time. open them again. During the night, Francis was killed. The game then...

Predictable. You always get rid of the badly written character first. You'd be the first to go in any scenario. That's just the fact, mate. Exactly. It'd be the black character first, then me. Yeah. So like there's a, so basically there's then a conversation, and this is where it gets interesting, during the day phase, between all the, all the villagers and the two werewolves over who the werewolves are. And the two werewolves are trying to draw attention to other people.

I heard a noise from over here. And the other werewolf was like, yeah, I think I did too. And all that sort of thing. Now, the game, then at the end of the day, the villagers have to decide who they're going to kill. And they say, well, we're going to kill Constant. And it's revealed by the person running the game. I'm afraid Constan was a villager. And the game continues.

Okay. The villagers win the game if they kill both werewolves. The werewolves win the game if they kill all but two villagers. The game was invented by a student of sociology in Russia who wanted to prove his thesis that an uninformed majority will always lose a battle of information against an informed minority. Wow. Yeah. And the werewolves usually win.

Even if you have 12 people around the table, the were always, I once won by turning in the other werewolf. I mean, you are in show business, Graham. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, that's clever. You turned another werewolf. Yeah. And we won't.

Wow. So that just shows when you have hidden information. Yeah. Yeah. You can completely manipulate a large group of people. That's happening in the NHS. It's happening in publishing. It's happening in every middle class industry.

Because there's always one or two or three people who think they themselves are non-binary. Have a kid who's told them they're non-binary. Or whatever it happens to be. And those people are controlling the conversation. So when Rachel Rooney, who is a, you know, who is a children's author, wrote a beautiful book called My Body Is Me, little book for toddlers. Like you might call it an anti-disforia book,

a book to make you comfortable in your own bones for little toddlers, they destroyed her career. They called her age, they said she was engaging in conversion therapy. They wrote to, now, the people who did this were in the society of authors. The authors' union, who are supposed to stand up for these, for their members, and they destroyed, they helped destroy her career. Because there's a couple of werewolves going, hold on a second, this is a bit transphobic, and then everyone else is too afraid to say, no, it's not, because then you become the werewolf suspect, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly.

Wow. It's like, we're not going to leave, we're not going to put that for a lot. That would be in the interview. Oh, good. It's such a good way of looking at it. And I've always thought... Oh, by the way, just in case people are looking for it and think, there's no good... It was actually originally called Mafia.

Yeah, I've played that game. And the world rules do usually win. Yeah. It's such an interesting point because I've always... My sense of history from what I've read and understood is a small, highly motivated minority, willing to, often willing to break the rules, that usually means in the historical context use violence, but this is a form of violence.

It's just not physical, it's destruction in other ways, right? A small motivated minority willing to play by a different set of rules will often be able to cower the majority because of the collective action problem, which is what you were talking about. And it's played out in various mass movements before. you know, from Christianity to communism to national socialism. Scientology is the best example

where even the people at the bottom level didn't know some of the actual teachings of Scientology. They were kept in the dark until the very last moment. The best, funniest example of that is when Paul, I think was Paul Haggis, who wrote Crash, and not very good Oscar winner, reached the highest level once, and he went in for a meeting,

And they said, well, this is what's going on. A god called Zinu put planes inside volcanoes. And he just suddenly realized, after years of working for the Scientologists, these people are insane. Yeah. You know? And I guess there's a similar thing going on here. There's a kind of a deliberate, forgive me if I run off the question. I hope I'm not.

You do whatever you want. But there's a deliberate kind of obfuscation around key, key. aspects of this issue. Like, for instance, what does trans mean? Does it mean transsexual? Right? That's the way I would interpret it, the way I used to. But now it appears to mean transsexual and Eddie is art. And Eddie is a cross-dresser. So... Hold on what is a transsexual? A transsexual is someone who's had an operation to cut off their genitals, you know? That's how I always thought of it, you know? Like, I

don't know, even that definition might be wobbly at the moment. Because it's like, they didn't like wake up one day and went, oh, I feel gender dysphoria. You know, there's a process that will take you up to that, right? And one thing that's happened is I think that there's, there's a definition of gender reassignment in the Equality's Act that says something like they have had this procedure

or are thinking of having it. So that means everybody is thinking of it. Anybody can be thinking of having it. And I realized that quite early on that this was a self-selecting group of people who just said, I'm trans. And that could range from Eddie Isard, right, to someone who has debilitating gender dysphoria

has an obsessive, recurring, invasive thought that they need to get rid of this to make themselves okay. And it's like, these two have nothing to do with each other. They have nothing to do with each other. So why are there... So it seemed to me that suddenly you've created this informed minority who can...

Like, there's a very famous... Sorry, this is probably... Please do. cut out any of this where I'm rambling. But as to the werewolves point, there's a very famous document called the Denton's document. Have you heard of it? No. It was a law firm called Dentons who worked pro bono on advice to give trans rights activists.

And it was literally for this reason on pushing through laws or bills or whatever that would not be popular with the public. And there's a number of bits of advice given, including avoid the media. Don't get drawn into debates. Target young politicians, you know. And when you think about some of the people like Nadia Whitton and Whitton and Merri Black who are pushing this stuff, they're all really young. Yeah. You know. And very empathetic and not very bright.

This is an optimum combination. Someone who really cares, but doesn't really understand the issues. Exactly, exactly. And so the Denton's document laid all this out in very bald terms, you know. And as I always say, this is the first civil rights movement that has been told to avoid the media. And when you think of it, when have you seen figures who are supposedly on the other side of this issue, right? Like Susie Green or the Nancy Kelly late of Stonewall. When have you seen them on panel, not panel shows?

on news shows discussing this issue. They don't do it. Because the desire is to create a completely suffocating... The desire is to completely suffocate the conversation. Yeah. To give it no air whatsoever. And Graham, on that point about were wolves, I think what has been very instructive to that issue

is the revelation of how exactly did our civil service become convinced about all of this? How exactly did the police become convinced of all of this? How exactly did other government and sort of quango-like structures become convinced that this ideology is the right way to go? And we now know, don't we? Yeah, yeah. All the tactics that were used in the Denton's document.

And you could download it, you can read it yourself, and there's some very good pieces about it online. But specifically, I mean mermaids, etc., being heavily involved, this organization in essentially teaching them these, contested ideas, to put it very mildly. Well, here's an interesting thing. Did you know that Mermaids used to be a great organization?

I didn't know that, no. Yeah, Mermaids in the old days... Well, like Stomwell. Yeah, exactly. And Mermaids in the old days were specifically for children who had dysphoria, you know? Then Susie Green came along. Susie Green had a gay or at least gender non-conforming child who, the husband, I'm not saying anything out of order here.

This was a TED talk that was up for a year. until it was suddenly taken down without explanation. And she said that her husband didn't like the son playing with girls' toys. You know? And she's doing it like a TED Talk. She's got the thing. She's doing all the hand, you know, the hand gestures you get in TED Talks, you know?

And then it was it. And all the little phrases, which would change my life forever. You know, mother's got, yeah? That's a sound good. And she's doing it, right? But there's this huge gap. It's like her husband didn't like him playing with. with girls' toys, suddenly she goes to Thailand with the kid at 16 and gets his penis cut off.

You know? So she told him he was trans. She put him on hormones, put him on puberty blockers and hormones. In fact, there's a very famous excerpt of a documentary about her where she's laughing because her 16-year-old son's penis wasn't large enough to create the inverted vagina. This is another reason why people don't like to talk about this issue because it's horrible. So this woman went into Mermaids where, you know, she's obviously, she'd obviously spent too much time into the night on forums,

listening to other people who think they have trans kids and believing everything they say. And she entered into Mermaids and she changed the culture at Mermaids. Similarly, you know, I used to follow, there was a social worker, Her name's Lisa Mogherich. She's amazing. And she said it only takes a few people to groom an organization. So again, and they've even made it a kind of a official part of a business in the diversity and inclusion or EDI. I'm not sure what it's called in.

I prefer D. I prefer D.E. Yeah. D.I. Yeah. D.I. Departments. And do you know what I mean? Yeah.

Like one of the things that made me realize something was really badly wrong at Hatrick was when I handed in a sitcom called Canceled. And they gave back sensitivity notes. And I thought the whole sitcom was about, you know, how this is ridiculous. The sensitivity reader said, people might think you're making fun of diversity and inclusion measures. You know? And so we've touched on Hatrick. which are probably one of the biggest production companies,

comedy production companies in the UK. When did it start affecting your career? When did you start noticing colleagues turning against you? Well, it didn't really... One of the things about cancellation, especially during COVID, was that it all just happened silently. You know, you don't really...

Still, I don't... There may be some people who just think I'm great and think I'm completely on the right track, but I can't call them to face another disappointment. you know and people you know yeah they just didn't announce well graeme lillen's a non-person now it just it just kind of happens the thing i the thing i but hold on they're sitting on your musical now aren't they yeah patrick so you clearly know that they're not they're not they have the rights to it they're not going to let you do it for one of half the rights and the

other half are owned by me author and nil hanum and they're sitting on it and what i think is an act of kind of preemptive cultural vandalism simply because I've stood up for women's rights, you know, and I've stood against the medicalization of children, which I would argue is everyone's, should be everyone's priority, you know what I mean? So we have the musical, we had it on its feet, we put it on a few times, there were even little dance routines, you know, to try and sell it to to people who might put money in, all this sort of stuff. And now they're just sitting on it. It should be on. It should have been on. It should have been on. on for the last two years, you know?

The other day I had to hide my car in case it's repossessed. That's how bad I, my money situation is at the moment, you know? I should have a musical on. It should be up and running for like three years. But because of this ridiculous and, you know, homophobic, misogynistic movement, it was just, it was just stolen. And all Hatrick and my colleagues, would have to do, would be to say, of course women should have fair sports. Of course children

shouldn't be mutilated and sterilized. Do you know what I mean? These are not controversial positions to hold, but for some reason, they refuse to do it. And the thing that's also heartbreaking, yet it says a lot about this case, is a musical is a musical of Father Ted. Yeah. One of the most beloved sitcoms of the last 30-odd years, which is still shown, which is still quoted, which the character of Father Dougal is now a staple when people talk about comedy and modern comedy. This would have sold out immediately. Whoever puts us out is basically printing money.

Yeah. But it's not being stopped because of the public. It's being stopped because theaters are refusing to put it on. and Hatrick and my colleagues are refusing to defend me and say, you know, this is ridiculous and make an issue out of it. Even so your colleagues are people that you wrote this with? Yeah, yeah. Like I spoke to some of them afterwards and again, I mean, it's so weird. This is what I mean when I say when you're at the center of it.

It's hard to know what's going on because they didn't seem to understand the issues. You bring them up and it's like this first time you've told them about it. And over the years, they had seen what had been happening to me. They'd seen me lose opportunities. I've been telling them exactly what the problem was, been getting largely agreement, you know, and suddenly it's seen, again, as a kind of a hobby I have, you know? It's right, no, they're sterilizing a generation of gay kids.

They're telling gay kids that they're actually straight, but they were born in the wrong body, and they need drugs and surgery to take care of that problem. That's evil. And I cannot get anyone to stand by my, my side and say, yeah, you're right, that's evil, you know. We'll be back with Graham in a minute, but first we wanted to tell you about Factor. We've discovered a fantastic way to stay on track with your nutritional goals while saving time.

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That's code Trigger50 at FactorMeals.com to get 50% off. Now, back to the interview. And this, the thing that shows in a way, because how weird this all is, is, I remember when I was growing up, corporations, whether it's TV, or we all kind of accepted that they were immoral. The bottom line was the bottom line. And as long as it was going to make money, then that's fine. But they would rather not make money.

Yeah. Lots of money, particularly during a pandemic and coming out of a pandemic where everybody's short of money. Yeah. Because of this. I wrote it literally thinking that it will be a bit like, being in a lovely mass, you know? Yeah. Like one of the things I, you know, like one of the things I feel, even though I'm an atheist, I do feel a little bit of a loss of the fact that we don't have

a weekly event where we all go and shake hands with our neighbors, you know? And I thought, I kind of saw this as this great release from COVID. It was desperate for it to happen as soon as COVID ended. But, you know, two years of having my reputation destroyed, 75 hit pieces about me in pink news, my Wikipedia vandalized and kind of rewritten every time we try and make it, you know, pathway neutral, it just took its toll. And by the time we were ready to go, by the time COVID was over, they just said it wasn't going to happen because unless I wasn't involved with it, You know? And the thing that really got me was I said to them, look, okay, I'll stay away, but I'd like to come in every so often and see how it's doing, see if it's on the right track.

And Jimmy Mulville of Hatrick said, no, we want a clean break. You know, again, what have I said that is so terrible to deserve that kind of treatment? You know? You know what? It's so wrong when you talk about it. It's just so, it's just wrong. And I think what you are actually being punished for, my sense is you're punished for being first and you're punished for because you had a large voice.

Yeah, maybe. That's what I think you're being punished for. Yeah. And you're in the wrong industry. If you were like an oil well rig man or something, no one would give a shit. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like when I came over here,

like I never got any anti-Irish racism. I got one weird, weird, I think someone called me a paddy in a police station once, I think that was it. But then again, I wasn't a police station. But like, the rest of the time I've had, you know, everyone's very respectful and everything's been going great. But like, I think what I did was, in the end, was I transgress certain etiquette in that like, you know, this is a middle class move. It's bored middle class kids who are often the victims of it. And, you know, I was kind of breaking an unwritten rule for going against little Jimmy's idea

that he's actually a third sex that's never existed before, you know. Do you think part of it as well is that you were a heretic in that you were, you were firmly part of the liberal establishment? Yeah. And then you did. And then you did. Yeah. Yeah.

That's how I see it. And we've all got to be so careful about becoming nodes about just transferring information that we, because one or two, like what was crazy about the trans women or women thing is that all these people who I'd believed for years, including people in the Gamergate fight who I'd been fighting for trying to, you know, defend them from trolling and all the sort of stuff. They believed it. And it was like, it just kind of made me realize, oh my God, what else? is bullshit. Do you know what I mean? All these kind of things I'd taken for granted. All these reasons that I'd gone in with both feet when I was fighting with someone online and, you know, which was never a problem when I was when I was doing it against the right, but again, do against left, you're dead. And I was using exactly, I was, I was actually quite polite during the conversation because I knew that any slip would be punished. I knew the way they worked, you know, but it didn't matter. They used to do things like they would, they took a

screenshot of a joke I made to my wife where I called her a bitch and used that as an example that I was a misogynist. Wow. You know, they faked, they, they fake Mumsnet comments where I admit to sending dick pics to women on Mumsnet. Um, you know, one, one guy, a doctor, did a fake prescription for me like that I needed mental pills and put it on a real NHS prescription, you know. So, you know it was just like a sorry just remind me how we got into this because sometimes these things these things there's so many stories to this piles piles they pile up and i lose my train of thought so we were talking about heretics oh yeah yeah so uh yeah but like it was kind of um i think one of the reasons why i was landed on with with hobnail boots so to speak was because like j k rolling uh i was

very, very left wing. I was extremely, I ticked all the boxes. You know, Israel, tick, everything, you know. And then, you know, J.K. Rowling did the same thing. And similar to me as well, JK Rowling, again, impeccable

credentials as a lefty, you know. But more than that as well, we had both created things that they liked. Yeah. And they knew that if our voices carried, they'd be in trouble. So that's why, you know, they do things like, you know, they take J.K. Rowling's name off school buildings

and stuff like this. It's just, it's designed to make everyone think there's something wrong with this person. There's something badly wrong. Amy, as I say, Amy Hamm, three years in a work tribunal because she put up a poster saying, I love J.K. Rowling. So, so again, J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter, which kind of, you know, has had three generations reading ever since. You know what I mean? Like at a time when computer games should be completely a obliterating that activity for young people. And she just saved, like, you know, saved publishing, really. But all these kids who grew up with her, at the same time, were also being influenced

by lunatics on Tumblr and Reddit, who believed a series of completely incoherent things that, you know, actually kind of appropriately enough, are a form of magic, you know? You could change sex, you know? You can escape your biology, you know. And these things are like, unlike the magic spells in Harry Potter, these are really dangerous things to tell kids, you know. So, yeah, we had to be destroyed and conclusively, you know. It's a sad story, man.

And, you know, I haven't really heard you tell it quite to that level before. And I'm really sorry that this is the way it's been. It must be very difficult. Must be very difficult. I will say, though, from an outside perspective, probably hard for you to see it, like this, as you said at the beginning, I actually do think we're making progress on this issue.

And I think the more time goes by, the more vindicated you'll find yourself. So hang in there, because I do think there's a lie. There's many other things about which I'm not optimistic at all. But on this one, I think, certainly in this country, we're actually making progress. And I think that's partly down to you. I know that so many of our female fans in particular,

as we call them the angry lesbian brigade. My people. Your people. They all look a bit like me. Don't laugh at that much. I was going to say like both of you. But the women are annoyed as well. Yeah.

But so many of them are really grateful that there was a man actually. who was not some, you know, I mean, you are right-wing evil big a bigot now, but you weren't at the time who was prepared to actually say something. So I know it's really tough right now. But, you know, your book has done well. It's getting great reviews from people who are being objective about it. And I really think that this is, you'll look back on this moment, actually with pride. Yeah.

I really do. Good. I already do. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I was kind of asked a question that people are asked every so often in history and I kind of answered it correctly. Absolutely.

And Graham, there's also something that I want to say to you, which is they may be able to do all these things to you. They may be able to stop your work being published for the moment, but times will change. But why do you hate trans people? But they will never take away your talent. And I mean this from the bottom of my heart. You are a generational talent, Graham. Oh, me.

I really appreciate it. Thank you. You inspired me. I'm starting to tear up now, to want to be a comedian and want to be... Really? Yeah. Fucking hell, man.

Father Ted. Guilty. Yeah, there's a lot, there's about 12 people who've seen my gigs in total are very angry at you. But you, with what you did with your work,

it was sensational. And you don't lose that brilliance overnight and through what you've been through. And eventually when you come out of this, because just as sure as as night happens, dawn will come. When the dawn will come, what you produce after everything that you've been through will be so beautiful and brilliant,

and I can't wait to see it. Oh, me. That means a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it. But it feels like the ending, though. Is that the ending?

It sort of has to be now. It sort of feels like after that, anything we ask is going to be weird. But as you know, I mean, we do ask before we go to questions from our supporters and a lot of people have asked questions. We do tend to ask our final question, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about

that we should be? And, you know, you might have thoughts on it, you might not. No, I can whistle something up. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, is that, are you asking that? Oh, I see. Sorry. This is actually like a conversation. That's actually the question. Right, right. Excuse me. Well, shit, the thing that just jumped into my head

is Eric Hoffer's true believer. I think everyone should be. reading it. It is a history of mass movements, mass kind of delusions sometimes. And he wrote it in 1953. He was like some working class guy who taught himself how to think in various different libraries and wrote this theory of what connected mass movements, everything from national socialism to Christianity. Actually, did we talk about this earlier? No. No. Oh, good. Okay. He's the guy that said every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. Yeah. Did he say that? That's interesting. But, well, basically, he wrote it in

1953, and it could have been written yesterday about this particular movement. It is, it just, this movement ticks all the boxes of one of these kinds of moments in history, you know. It needs, it's usually pretty comfortable people who, who run these kinds of movements. there has to be a sort of nihilism abroad. That means it attracts people who've given up hope on other things. It's a very nihilistic moment at the moment. Everyone thinks the world's going to end in a couple of months and so on. And I think all these things have come together in real life, the way he wrote about them.

And like I was just driving, like I was on the tube train up here. And again, you can't highlight it because you just end up highlighting. The whole book is yellow, you know, because everything just strikes you as, like there's a whole section in it where he talks about, you know, how faith in a doctrine like gender ideology or like national socialism or like communism is so kind of complete that you can't really have conversations with people about it. They'll cover up their ears before they listen because you're questioning the doctrine. You're questioning the true faith that will lead everyone into a better world. And there's actually kind of, you know, at the heart of gender ideology, there is a kind of a reach for something good, which is the idea that if we change our language, then the reality of sexism will change.

And it's just not true. All that happens is that you create kind of a kind of super, what's the word, oh God, you know, when you're a super privileged form of male, right? You know what I mean? The sacred class I sometimes call, you know. And that's what's happening. The opposite to what they set out to do. It hasn't destroyed sexism.

It has created, as someone puts it, the patriarchy in stilettos, you know, and that's what this is. And yeah, his book will, I think reading that book will, will everybody, reading, we'll just have a light bulb moment, you know. Graham Linhan, thanks for coming on. Follow us over to locals, but before you do, make sure you get yourself a copy of tough crowd and head over to locals where we ask Graham your questions. With both Labour and the Conservatives being so shied, does Graham think a third party might stand a chance?

And if so, who?